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"Capitalist lives? My God, Alexei what are you saying!"
"They said that an accident might be a good thing, that it would wake the capitalists up!"
"Didn't it ever occur to them that we are all taking the same risks, Alexei? If we hit the US, they'll hit us back, city for city. Don't they realize the immense risks we take every time we play those alertness games with live missiles?"
"Hush, someone's coming, Boris."
"Who cares, Alexei! Let them hear us. If our leaders can't see the security advantage of pre-targeting all missiles into the Arctic Ocean, what else can't they see?"
"Quieter Boris! Remember we're discussing national security information here. You know that even in the open, someone might be listening."
"I wish the whole world could hear us," replied Boris angrily, though somewhat toned down. "Far too few people know what's really going on. If people knew what games are being played with their life, things might be different. Maybe someone ought to tell them."
"You're right," said Alexei, "I agree with you. But not everyone would agree. In fact, hardly anyone would listen to you if you spoke up on these issues, unless, of course, you represented the government. The people at the committee simply wouldn't listen to the proposal I had made, with one exception, a fellow, named Zalygin. He approached me after the hearing and apologized for his colleagues. He explained a lot of things that really opened my eyes. Possibly the man had said more than he was allowed to. He confided to me that our proposal had already been implemented. It is reality, now! It has even been tested. It is fully operational. It works!"
Boris stopped Alexei and looked at him questioningly.
"Now, can you imagine what a bind I have put everyone in?" said Alexei. "They had to comment on something that was top secret, something that absolutely no one was supposed to know about. They weren't prepared for the bombshell I put in their lap."
"So the man felt he should say something to keep you quiet, and me, too?" said Boris.
Alexei nodded. "He gave me a quick overview of what they had built so that we would stop pushing our idea."
Alexei told Boris that the man, personally, felt that every officer at the base should know about what he is working with.
Alexei motioned Boris to sit down at a bench. There was a woman not far from where they stood. "Zalygin told me," he said in a hushed voice, "that not even the technicians who had modified the missiles during normal maintenance knew what their work had accomplished. They all follow procedures, and know nothing more. Not even the base commander knows as much about it as we do now. Only a very few select people in high places know that our 'incident' had been the final test to verify the practicality of the in-flight targeting process. He said that all of our missiles are now targeted at the Mojave Desert, somewhere south in the US. That's their default target."
Boris stood up and shook his head. "That's essentially what we had in mind, isn't it?"
"Except their way is cheaper. It required only minor changes in the guidance sequence. Defaulting to the Arctic Ocean, as we wanted, would have required greater inertial variances. These could not be achieved. The bottom line is, they've come up with a parallel invention to our own, and a more practical one. If a missile gets away, it simply blows a hole into the desert!"
Boris said that this was very good news. He could well imagine how shocked the people in Moscow must have been when Alexei presented the very plan to them that no one was to know about.
"Just think, if the Americans had found out," said Alexei, "what a great advantage they would have gained. They would know, that if they destroyed our communication system, they would render all of our missile forces harmless!"
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Stories
about
Healing
from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche
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